Reinforcement procedures and social behavior in a group context with severely retarded children.

Snmmary.--Operant reinforcement procedures were employed by a teacher and a teacher's aide in the classroom to develop simple but sustained social behaviors in 8 young severely retarded children. The relative effectiveness of social and edible reinforcement was also investigated as well as the tendency for these new behaviors to generalize from a group to a free-play situation. Reinforcement procedures were successfully applied by these teachers in class, providing an effective and economical means for developing social behavior. Edible reinforcement proved to be most effective but the behavior did not generalize.